Foundationalism

Helen Longino is a feminist epistemologist who argues that in order to reduce the chance of having subjective beliefs and have more objective knowledge, we must expand our epistemic communities. I think that Longino’s solution is more palatable than either foundationalism or coherentism. An epistemic community is the community that we hold our beliefs in. By expanding that community, there are more inputs on certain beliefs. If I have a belief that coincides with my epistemic community, but my community consists of people who have the same biases, our viewpoint is limited and, therefore, may be false. If I have a community that is large and diverse, there is a better chance that my bias will be addressed by others in the community. Longino…

Justifying belief and what is knowledge’s nature and scope is well defined by the philosophical stance of “naturalized epistemology” in that knowledge comes from the empirical sciences though it’s application of theory, methods and results. Knowledge comes from proving things. This is different from the classical foundationalism which asserts the need to basic belief from which other beliefs can be built on. This essay will discuss the distinctiveness of naturalized epistemology, then how it…

Specifically, it attempts an account of explanations that end with “non-inferentially justified belief”, by showing the existence of beliefs with a certain property that makes it appropriately basic and indefeasible. This strategy consists of relating claims to know to a foundation, which is asserted to be true, which can be correctly applied to yield knowledge. In this manner, foundationalism aims to provide an alternative to the regression problem – that the chain of reasons can come to rest…

the professor learn the material from? What makes that material valid? …and so on. Since it is impractical to keep questioning ideas without ever reaching a conclusion, certainly there must be some way to address and solve this issue of regress. There are many potential ways to solve the regress argument. Philosophers have tried to find ways around the need for infinite justifications through epistemological arguments such as foundationalism, infinitism, and coherentism. However, the argument…

It is vital to distinguish inferential from non-inferential to understand classic foundationalism. Fumerton states that something is inferentially justified if “let us say that P is inferentially justified if its justification is constituted by the having of at least one belief other than P. A belief is noninferentially justified if its justification does not consist in the having of any other belief” (pg. 56) The foundationalist claims that every justified belief is grounded in some belief…

Bonjour considers two responses to his argument, externalism and givenism. I would be talking about Bonjours views and arguments on externalism and giving his thoughts and view on the topic. I would also be concerning his counter argument and explaining his views on it and why he disagrees with it. I also would be going over his foundationalist view and some of his thoughts on it. I also would be going over his regress argument. Bonjour thinks that there are two different responses for his…

to knowledge, it is thought that these beliefs should be justified. Coherentism is a form of internal, non-linear justification which holds the idea that for a belief to be justified in any way it must cohere with a current system of beliefs. BonJour wrote that 'what justifies beliefs is the way they fit together' , in essence, for beliefs to be justified they must metaphorically form a lattice like structure, where they each support each other, creating a non-linear structure of justification.…

Plantinga argues that the problem with this criterion is that it is very restricted. He says it ignores beliefs that re accepted by most people in the world. Another problem Plantinga argues is that the same criterion has self-problems. The foundationalism criteria is not self-evident, incorrigible or “evident to the senses”. Hence it cannot be properly basic and it should therefore have evidence for it. But there is no evidence, this shows that the criterion is in itself faulty and is in need…

They believe “postmodernists offer sophisticated and persuasive criticisms of foundationalism and essentialism but their conceptions of social criticism tend to be anemic. Feminists offer robust conceptions of social criticism, but they tend, at times, to lapse into foundationalism and essentialism” (Fraser and Nicholson, 1989). These two perspectives are evident and important in understanding Annie Sprinkle and her Post-Porn Modernist Show. Annie Sprinkle’s Post-Porn Modernist Shows explores…

It had points that made sense with great logic and interpretations of what the Word of God is. It also had reasons that were not suitable for what should go with knowing the Bible. The fact of externalism and foundationalism are contradictory to what the true meaning of Christianity is.With the belief of externalism and foundationalism, they seemed to distance how to actually figure out the ways to become a part of God’s life. If we limited ourselves to only search for the evidence of the…